Текст книги "Scarred for Life"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

‘Is that on the record?’

Jessica crunched the paper cup into the table. ‘Will you sod off with your “on the record” shite?’

‘I’m a journalist, what do you expect?’

‘Well, it’s not on the record. I’m telling you because I want you to know the full story if anything else gets leaked. If and when this ever goes to court, people are going to remember the rich kid who shoved things up new recruits’ arses. It’s only a short step from that to believing he forced some other kid to drink himself to death, or hid the body at the absolute least – he’ll never get a fair trial.’

‘That’s probably what his lawyer will argue.’

‘We both know that never works.’

Garry took the final bite of his sandwich and leant back into his chair with his cup of tea. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘If you won’t tell me the source, then nothing, I suppose. I just wanted you to know this stuff.’

‘Perhaps you should talk to your chief inspector?’

Jessica mocked surprise. ‘Well, why didn’t I think of that? Whatever’s going on involves him – even if it’s someone above him putting pressure on.’

‘Fine. I’ll keep an ear out and let you know if I get anywhere.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And you’re still invited to my wedding, by the way. You’ve not returned the invitation yet.’

Jessica motioned to stand then stopped herself. ‘Hang on a minute, are you going through this whole ritual – bribing a girl to marry you and inviting a bunch of people – just to get me into a dress?’

Garry stood and winked. ‘Got me.’

At Longsight Police Station, there was a strange atmosphere. Everyone was so busy that no one had a moment to stop. To Jessica it was as if people were avoiding her but then she knew she was feeling paranoid anyway and there was every chance it was in her imagination. Fat Pat did slide his bag of crisps further under the desk when he spotted her, so at least he’d noticed her.

In her office, Jessica read through the notes of everything that had happened overnight, which only made her feel more marginalised. She dialled Izzy’s extension and waited for the sergeant to pick up.

‘. . . No, I don’t bloody have it,’ Izzy’s voice shouted away from the speaker. ‘Tell him to check his own bloody desk then. Hello.’

‘Busy morning?’

‘Aren’t they always?’

‘Have you got five minutes?’

‘Yeah, I’ll come to you.’

A few minutes later, Izzy sighed her way into Jessica’s office, looking particularly bedraggled. She screeched a chair around until she was next to Jessica’s desk and then slumped on it. ‘We really do work with morons.’

Jessica nodded at her hair. ‘What happened to you?’

‘We were staying at Mal’s mum’s house last night. I looked at the weather forecast before we left and it said dry, so I only had my regular clothes with me. I got this wet walking across the car park this morning, then it’s been dip-shit day in here today. It’s like there’s a convention on.’

‘Did you see this?’ Jessica said, pointing at her monitor.

Izzy nudged the Post-it note stuck to the side with her fingernail. ‘The Samaritans’ phone number?’

‘No, I think Dave left that there for a laugh. I meant the fact that they brought in all nine of the people I wanted to talk to about Cassie Edmonds last night.’

Izzy peered in closely at the screen, reading the information for herself. ‘Since when do they let the night team do things like that?’

Jessica shrugged. ‘I have no idea. When I left last night, I thought we’d be charging Holden with GBH and sexual assault and that he’d be in court this morning. Instead, they interviewed him again first thing this morning before I got in.’

‘What’s going on?’

Another shrug – what else was there to do? ‘I read the report – Holden says he knows nothing about Damon’s death but they’ve been hammering him on it. He had the exact same story as he told Archie and me and was surprised when they told him his alibi had fallen apart. He kept saying he was at the party for the entire evening and that his friends must be mistaken. That’s what he kept calling them – “my friends”; he didn’t even know they’d stitched him up.’

‘Have they charged him yet?’

‘No one would likely tell me if they had – it was only my case in the first place because I got called out. It could have been another inspector on call. It’ll only be a matter of time – if they don’t do him for manslaughter, they’ll get him for the assaults, and see if they can dig anything else up while he’s in custody.’

‘You don’t think he’ll get bail.’

Jessica snatched the Post-it note with the Samaritans’ number on and balled it up. ‘Why do you think all that stuff got leaked to the papers this morning? All the magistrates around here would’ve seen that. Our lot will take him to court this afternoon and they’ll remember the name. Who’s going to let him out when they’ve already heard the story? Someone’s been very clever.’

Izzy lowered her voice: ‘The guv?’

Jessica launched the Post-it note at the bin and missed – as usual. She shook her head. ‘He’s acting like a dick but this isn’t his style. Someone else.’ Before Izzy could add anything, Jessica changed the subject. ‘Any luck finding Bones?’

Izzy ran a hand through her sodden hair. ‘You’d think that if you had your head tattooed, then it might be hard to go incognito, but we’ve not had a single sighting – plus we can’t get anything on the news because they’re obsessed with the hazing thing and that knocked-up soap star. The only place we’ve got his picture out is on the force’s website and no one looks at that.’

‘I’m sure you’ll find him.’

‘He’s probably in the Maldives by now. Anyway, don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject. What are you going to do about everything going on around here?’

‘Keep acting as if everything’s fine and everyone can walk all over me.’

Izzy tilted her head to the side, unconvinced. ‘What are you really going to do?’

Jessica winked at her friend. ‘I’ll think of something.’

18

As it was, Jessica didn’t have much time to think of anything because everything around the station went into meltdown when the call came through that another body had been found. Whoever had killed Cassie Edmonds hadn’t stopped with just her. The killing of Grace Savage lived up to the young woman’s surname. She had been dumped in a ditch in Little Hurst Wood, barely half a mile from where Cassie had been found. The crime scene was in a marginally better state given that it had been discovered by two kids skiving off school, as opposed to a clumsy dog-walker, but the torrent of the night before had done little to preserve the site.

The bad news didn’t end there: because they were almost certain Grace had been murdered the night before, the nine people of interest they’d brought in in relation to Cassie’s death were being interviewed at the station at the time Grace was killed, meaning that they were off the hook. It had been a long shot anyway; now, alongside a second victim, they officially had no suspects. As well as the beating her body had been given, the killer had again used a knife to nick away small parts of her body post mortem. It was yet to be confirmed but there was no obvious sexual motive, with the fingertip search in the rain throwing up nothing other than a lot of tired, wet, muddy officers.

A deep-seated hatred of women and an anger problem indeed.

Grace’s husband, Nick, had already been notified but someone had to take a formal statement. Feeling left out of the Potter case and as useless as she had done in years, Jessica went to do the dirty work. She arrived at the Moston house sopping wet, Izzy in tow, both of them nursing bruised egos – not that any of that compared to what Nick was going through.

A liaison officer let them into the house and then scuttled off to make some tea. If there was one thing you had to be able to do well when you were a liaison officer, it was make tea. Jessica assumed that the first week of the course was spent figuring out the exact amount of milk it took to make a perfect brew and stirring techniques. Week two would be the application of sugar, whether brown was better than white, and how to ensure there was no sludge in the bottom of the mug.

Then they’d move on to how to talk to a man whose wife had been beaten, murdered and sliced to pieces.

Nick was sitting in an armchair, legs curled under him, staring into the nothingness of the wall in front of him. In his hand an empty mug dangled, perilously close to slipping onto the floor.

Jessica introduced herself and sat with Izzy on the sofa. The sergeant had her notebook and pen out; just like the old days, before station politics and arseholes took over the asylum. Well, there were always arseholes – they just hadn’t always been in charge.

‘Can you talk me through yesterday evening?’ Jessica asked.

Nick had an earring in each ear, a stud through his nose and a ring through his lip. Above him, there was a wedding photograph on the wall, him with his bald head atop a grey suit, Grace looking every inch the perfect bride: her hair in long dark ringlets, beautiful smile, glint in her eye. Nick clucked his tongue into the lip ring and closed his eyes. ‘She goes to yoga every Monday.’

‘Where?’

‘This place near the Arndale – she works in the centre, so it’s easier for her to be a member of a gym there and then come home after rush hour. You know what the traffic’s like. I can’t remember the name of it but I’ve got the details somewhere.’

He motioned to stand but Jessica stopped him – they’d already checked those details after identifying her by crosschecking the missing persons reports. They had the CCTV from outside the fitness studio of her leaving on foot. It was only a quarter of a mile away from the spot from where Cassie had disappeared.

Before Jessica could ask anything else, the liaison officer entered with the brews, with Jessica’s as perfect as she expected it to be. As Nick swapped his empty mug for a full one, cupping his fingers around it for warmth, Jessica couldn’t help but feel England really was a ridiculous place. For all the prejudged ideas those from overseas had about Brits thinking a cup of tea made everything better, people really did everything to live up to the cliché. She had definitely become worse as she’d got older.

‘Did your wife usually walk home from the gym?’ Jessica asked.

Nick shook his head. ‘Occasionally in the summer, never in the dark.’

She wanted him to finish the story without her having to ask but he stopped to have another sip of his drink and then sat in a dazed silence.

‘It was dark yesterday . . .’

‘I know. It’s bloody November.’

‘What happened?’

‘Our car’s bollocksed – this piece of shit Peugeot. The bloody thing’s always breaking down. We were at the Trafford Centre this weekend, mooching around looking for Christmas presents, like you do. The place was heaving: kids screaming, people with huge bags, all sorts trying to get you into their shops. It was a nightmare, then we got outside and the car wouldn’t start. We had to sit there waiting for the AA to turn up and tow us home. Grace was always going on about what a shit-heap it was – well, she didn’t put it like that . . .’

Nick’s voice cracked and he stopped for another drink. Jessica knew exactly what it was like to have a car like that. There had been more than one occasion where she’d had to be towed home, although her old Fiat had now reached a sort of beatified state in her mind where she only remembered the good old days of strong-arming it around a corner while crunching through the gears. If she really, really tried, Jessica could recall all the times she’d cursed it and threatened any number of despicable acts upon it for not starting.

When he had settled, Nick continued. ‘Grace had a bit of time off work ill at the end of the summer, so there was no way she could take any more. I phoned in sick yesterday, then spent the day trying to get the car into a garage. She took the bus to work, even though she hates it. I normally give her a lift in because the bus is always over-crowded and you have to stand. Then it’s full of window-lickers too.’ He glanced up at Jessica. ‘I suppose you drive everywhere?’

‘I’ve been on my fair share of buses and trains.’

‘You know what it’s like then.’

‘Yes.’

‘The plan was for me to get the car fixed, then pick her up after yoga.’ He delved into his pocket, taking out his mobile phone and pressing the screen, then tossing it across to Jessica. ‘Look.’

Jessica turned the screen around and read:

Nick: ‘Sorry hun. Car’s still shite. Shall I meet you?’

Grace: ‘Don’t worry babez. I’ll get the bus.’

Jessica stood and passed the phone back to him.

‘That was the last I heard from her,’ Nick said. ‘That stupid heap of shite car . . . we’ve only been married for four months. She was talking about little wee bairns . . .’

Jessica finished getting the rest of the details as Nick chain-drank his way through mugs of tea. Cassie and Grace had gone missing from a similar spot within days of each other.

When they were done, Jessica and Izzy got back into the car ready to head back to the station and swap cars. Their shifts had finished more than an hour ago.

‘I know that look,’ Izzy said from the passenger’s seat.

‘What?’

‘Cogs whirring, hamster wheels turning.’

‘It’s probably nothing.’

‘If you don’t want to trust anyone else at the station, you can tell me.’

Jessica flicked the headlights on and pulled onto the road. ‘It’s not that – I just don’t want to be wrong. Not now; I feel like there are people waiting for me to fail.’

‘All the more reason to run things past me.’

‘You, me and Dave walked along Oldham Road but it’s all blocked off. Did you know that before we went?’

‘No.’

‘Me neither – and you can only see the “road closed” signs when the barriers are already in view.’

‘Okay . . .’

‘So it’s not been well advertised and it’s not well signposted. Let’s assume most people don’t know that the road’s closed, even if they know the area. Cassie lived in Failsworth, Grace in Moston – the areas are right next to each other; they probably live a five– or ten-minute drive apart and they’d take a similar route home.’

‘That’s still a big area for them to go missing from.’

‘I know; too big to have everyone out on the streets checking every small side street they could have cut through. When we were in that area with the roadworks, I thought then that it was where Cassie disappeared from; I had this feeling.’

‘You think Grace was taken from around there too?’

‘Maybe . . . it was something Nick said. Have you ever been out in town late and you’re the last one standing? You’ve only got a few quid left, not enough for a taxi but just enough for the late bus. He called people “window-lickers”, which I nearly laughed at, but it means the people who are catching that last bus home. Most of them are either pissed, high, horny, or all three. Perhaps when Cassie was walking along the road, she thought she’d get the bus. Grace texted Nick to say she was either going to walk or get the bus. She might have started walking and then realised it was too far and that she’d get the bus instead. They’d have both been catching it from the same road.’

Jessica indicated to turn onto the main road but she could sense Izzy figuring it out herself. ‘When we were by those roadworks, there was a cover over the bus-stop sign.’

‘Exactly – and if there were no buses running along that route, who do you think might have been hanging around?’

‘Taxis.’

‘Bingo.’

Izzy didn’t reply for a moment. Jessica thought it was because she was thinking how brilliant her friend was, but the response was far more devastating than that: ‘“Bingo?” You’ve been hanging around with Archie for way too long.’

Despite her reservations about Jessica’s choice of words, Izzy did agree that it was something worth looking into. Without making too much of a fuss, she asked one of the night-crew constables who she claimed ‘wasn’t a total dick’ to see what they could come up with.

Jessica arrived home to a smell she didn’t recognise: cleanliness. She went into the living room, where Adam was sitting in his chair with his feet up watching television. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

Adam nodded towards the kitchen and smiled. Jessica walked through the hallway into the kitchen to find Bex sitting at the table reading a magazine. She glanced at Jessica and instantly apologised. ‘Sorry, I found this in the other room. You can have it back.’

Jessica batted it away. ‘It’s just some celebrity shite, which means it’s Adam’s.’

‘Oh.’

‘Why does it smell funny in here?’

‘I, er, don’t know . . . I cleaned . . .’

‘You cleaned?’

Bex peered at her feet, cradling her knees into herself again. She was so tiny, arms nearly as thin as the mop handle resting against the wall behind her. ‘Sorry, I wanted to do something to help.’

‘Don’t apologise, it’s just . . . I’ve never cleaned in here.’

‘I did the bathroom too.’

‘Whoa!’

‘Sorry . . .’

‘Stop saying sorry. It’s a good thing . . . well, sort of. You don’t have to clean up after us.’

‘I thought because you were both working hard and I was sitting around, that I should do something to help.’

Jessica sat on the chair next to her and rested a hand on the girl’s knee. ‘It was very kind of you. I hope you spent the day looking after yourself, too.’

That grin spread across Bex’s face again. ‘I had a bath.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a bath before. It was amazing.’

‘Good.’

The smile shrank to its minimum once more. ‘I don’t want to be a burden.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Adam . . . ?’

‘He’s happy for you to be here.’

‘He told me off for cleaning.’

‘That’s because he’s an old woman who likes to do it himself.’ They swapped grins as Bex reached across the table and picked up a letter. ‘This came for you, by the way.’

The only items of mail Jessica usually got were bills (Adam’s), junk (the bin’s), bank statements (Adam’s), or vouchers for the booze shop around the corner (Jessica’s).

Jessica took the letter but it was different from the type of thing that generally came through the door – the envelope was padded but thin. On the front, her first name was written in block capital letters but there was no last name and no address – this had been hand-delivered.

She was about to flip it over to open it when she noticed a small, sketched symbol in the top-right corner. It was a fork shape, with three prongs: one curling to the left, one straight up, one curling to the right. Holding them together was a loop at the bottom, making it look like some sort of sheaf. Jessica tried to place it, but wasn’t sure if she had ever seen it before.

Jessica could already feel the tension beginning to slink along the top of her neck as she ran a finger under the flap and opened it. Reaching in, she pulled out a single sheet of thin card with five words written on it in the same handwriting that had put her name on the envelope. Jessica read them three times then returned the card to the envelope before Bex asked about it. She wouldn’t be forgetting them any time soon though because, assuming the words referred to Holden, they were telling her what she already knew.

‘You’ve got the wrong man.’

19

Jessica’s first thought was to hand in the envelope and note – but that would have been what she’d have done when she thought she could trust people around the station. She spent a partially sleepless night wondering who else the words could relate to if it wasn’t Holden, but there was no one. She already believed that someone, somewhere, was trying to put pressure on them to make sure Damon’s death was pinned on Holden and now this note seemed to confirm that. Not only was there a person trying to make that happen, there was now somebody else trying to make sure that she was the one who stopped it.

Somebody who knew where she lived.

In the end, her Wednesday morning didn’t begin in the way she thought it would – it began in the way her Tuesday morning had: supermarket cafe, pensioners, single mums, bored-looking waitresses, orange juice, sausages in a bap, brown sauce, newspaper on the table and Garry Bloody Ashford. This time it was at his request.

Jessica peered around at the surroundings, wondering if this was what her life had come down to: the faint smell of coffee and the wafting aroma of fried egg, together with intermittent public address announcements for Janice to go to the front of the store.

‘So you couldn’t quite get enough of me,’ Jessica said, watching Garry cover his chin in brown sauce again. There really was no elegant way to eat a sausage sandwich. Still, if you were the one with the sausage sandwich then you were winning anyway.

Garry rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, I’m here to declare my undying love for you and this is the best place I could come up with.’

‘What do you really want?’

Garry wiped his lips and nodded at the paper in front of him, which showed a photograph of Holden being led into court the previous afternoon. As she had predicted, he hadn’t been given bail.

Jessica glanced across the page and shrugged. ‘Didn’t we talk about this yesterday?’

Garry shook his head. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen. When the story came in on the wires that you’d found that second girl’s body out at Little Hurst, we started pulling things together about the fact two young women’s bodies had been found a few days apart. No one at your end was giving details but we got a camera down there and were trying to get a name.’

‘We couldn’t have told you before we told the victim’s family.’

‘I know; that’s not the issue. The point is that we’d cobbled something together anyway. Admittedly it mainly went over the first body find – Cassie Edmonds’ – but we had something. It was all lined up ready for the front page when the editor was called out of conference. Usually, he refuses to take calls when we’re in those meetings but his secretary told him it was important and he left the room. A few minutes later, he came back and everything had changed. Suddenly, he was saying we didn’t have enough to run the young-women-being-killed story properly and that we’d lead on Holden. Within a few minutes, your press office was on giving us every tiny detail we might possibly want about the decision to charge Holden Wyatt. We’d normally have to coax each morsel out, but we were given it all on a plate.’

‘So your main story was changed?’

‘Yes – it was the same on the radio and TV this morning. They might not have had the same call but the fact you were so cooperative with details for Holden meant that story was always going to be the easiest to run.’

‘Who’s your editor?’

‘You won’t know him. He’s been in place for about a year. The old one was making too much money, so the parent company made him redundant and parachuted in some guy from down south. He doesn’t know the area but no one in management really cares about that, as long as the paper comes out and the ads get sold.’

‘Do you know who called him?’

‘No. The old editor would do things like that all the time – decide what he wanted, then blow his top at anyone that disagreed – it’s just the way he was. But the new bloke is different. We all know he’s the management’s guy, there to make a few cuts. He usually leaves the news order to those of us who’ve been there a while and know the area. He doesn’t get angry because he’s got nothing to be angry about. Half the time, he’s itching to get back outside and have another fag. Yesterday was different, though. When he said we should change the order, one of the lads asked if he was sure and he totally lost it. He was going on about people questioning his authority, asking if unemployment was an attractive prospect and so on. Everyone sat in silence because he’s usually so passive.’

‘What was he like before he took the phone call?’

‘The same as ever; slumped in his seat fiddling with his phone. I thought you were just moaning yesterday but—’

‘“Moaning”?’

Garry hid behind the final mouthful of his sandwich. ‘You’re always going on about something.’

‘Justifiably!’

‘Either way, there’s something going on. I’ll see what I can find out and give you a call if I come up with anything.’

‘“Moaning”? You’re back on my shit list.’

At the station, results were beginning to come in from Grace Savage’s body but it was a similar story to everything that had been found on Cassie Edmonds’. Neither had been sexually assaulted, both had broken ribs from the beating their upper torsos had taken, and both had had a finger and part of an ear cut off. The rain had washed away much of the evidence at both scenes, with the fingertip search a waste of time too. They hadn’t been able to find anything to link the two victims, other than their age and the fact they lived in roughly similar areas.

As Jessica waded through her overnight emails and memos, Izzy knocked and entered her office with a sheaf of printouts. ‘This is your list of registered black cab drivers,’ she said.

‘What about people who drive pre-booked taxis?’

‘Shite, I didn’t think of that. I’ll get someone to do it. Everyone’s got to be registered with the city council, so it’s not too hard to pull it all together.’

‘Get Archie to contact all the companies and find out who was on duty that night. I know a driver could’ve gone out anyway but it’ll give us somewhere to start – and let’s start running the plates through ANPR. Even if we haven’t got CCTV, we’ve got enough number-plate cameras along the main road to look for a match from one database to the other.’

Izzy nodded and headed out of Jessica’s office just as DCI Cole stormed in, making the door bang against the frame. Jessica was so taken by surprise that she bashed her knee against her desk, sending a cardboard folder flying off the edge, which created a domino effect of things collapsing around the floor. Her office really was a tip.

Cole had one hand on his hip, the other clinging onto a printout. ‘What’s going on with Holden Wyatt?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re supposed to be one of my inspectors and you don’t know?’

‘I didn’t even know you’d charged him! You can’t expect me to know every aspect of a case if you tell me one day you’re charging him, then you hold off and continue questioning him about something else, then he ends up getting charged for the first thing. I went to see Grace Savage’s husband last night and we’re trying to sort a possible link to taxi drivers this morning. I—’

‘You’ve what? Last week it was trying to catch a pickpocket but I don’t have a name for that. A knife robber is on the loose because you or one of your team let him go. His head is covered in tattoos – why’s it so hard to find him? You had a student dumped in a bin but you’ve not been able to pin that on anyone either. Now there are two dead girls and the best you’ve got is something to do with taxis. What exactly is it you’re doing down here?’

Jessica had two words for him but narrowly managed to bite her tongue. ‘You’re forgetting everything else that we have sorted out.’

Cole removed his hand from his hip, so he looked a little less like a teapot and more like the dumpy man he had become. He ran a hand through what was left of his hair. ‘There’s no use living off past glories – you know there’s a big report into the effectiveness of this force coming at the start of next year. What we don’t want is a host of unsolved cases.’

‘Isn’t trying to rush things what got us into this mess in the first place? Well, that and fabricating evidence but we’re definitely not trying to fit up Holden Wyatt, are we?’

Jessica glared defiantly at the DCI but knew she’d gone too far.

Cole’s lips were pursed, eyes fixed: ‘What exactly are you trying to say?’

‘Nothing, Sir.’

‘Good – then do your job and let’s start moving some of these unsolved cases into the non-incompetence pile, shall we?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

Cole gave Jessica one final hand-on-hip stare and then he was gone, back into the corridor to act like a dick in front of someone else.

Jessica sat for a few moments, running through everything he’d said to her. What. An. Arse. She picked up some of the items that had clattered to the floor and then headed through the station to the main floor, where she found Rowlands frantically bashing away at his keyboard.

‘Is this another letter to the problem pages?’ Jessica teased, nudging him in the shoulder as she perched on the desk in front of him. ‘“Dear agony aunt, my right wrist is so completely swollen compared to the left one that my entire body leans to one side. If that’s not enough, then I smell a bit like a bin . . .”’

‘Haven’t you got better things to do than hang around here trying to be funny?’

‘I never try to be funny – I am funny. Anyway, let’s go for a walk. You can practise trying not to lean to one side.’

Jessica led him through the corridors until they were back at her office. Once inside, she locked the door. Dave spun round at the sound of the click.

‘All right, calm down,’ Jessica said, pressing herself against the door. ‘Go to my desk and open the top drawer. Inside the top envelope is another one.’

Rowlands shrugged but crossed the room and opened the drawer, pulling out a blank white envelope and reaching in to take out the one inside with her name written on it. He held it up. ‘Where did this come from?’

‘Someone put it through my door at home yesterday. Look inside.’

Rowlands read the card. ‘Who’s the wrong man?’

‘I presume Holden Wyatt – I don’t know who else it could be talking about.’

‘Who sent it?’

‘No idea.’

After reading the card again, then turning it over to check the back and returning it to the envelope, Rowlands noticed the sketch in the top-right corner. ‘What’s this?’

‘I was hoping you might be able to look into it. I would . . . but things are awkward around here and I’ve got people on my shoulder the whole time.’

Jessica was about to add something else when there was a large bang from the other side of the door, followed by a female-sounding ‘Ow’. Jessica unlocked the door and opened it to find Izzy rubbing the side of her face and blinking rapidly.

‘Your door was locked,’ she said, pointing out the obvious.

‘I know; people usually knock.’

Izzy continued rubbing her head and looked a little woozy, glancing conspiratorially between Jessica and Dave. ‘Sorry – I was in a rush and thought you might want to come along. We’ve had a sighting of Bones.’